England vs Sri Lanka First ODI – The Final Over of the Day

From the umpires' room during the rain break

Ball One – Having looked in decent touch, new captain Alastair Cook tickles one down the leg-side and is caught by a diving Sangakkara. Given the interpretation of the wides law in limited overs cricket, it’s surprising how many batsmen who leave so well outside off-stump, cannot leave the ball outside leg-stump. It’s a scoring opportunity, true, but so is a run and an extra ball.

Ball Two – Between powerplay recalculations, bowlers’ allocations, Duckworth-Lewis tables and the sight of players practising, but not playing, on the outfield, the more accessible format of the game (ie limited overs cricket) sure looks inexplicable to someone who has been watching it for nearly 40 years.

Ball Three – On the resumption, England moved straight into Twenty20 mode which, allied to the pre-rain powerplay cricket, means that England will be biffing for 32 overs – no boring middle overs today! There’s a danger in such prolonged biffage, as KP shows, hitting Jeevan Mendis’ first delivery – a long hop – straight to midwicket.

Ball Four – Stealing every run he can get, Stuart Broad ran a single to the keeper – nothing wrong with that in the penultimate over. Possibly something wrong with the way he ran however, sprinting straight up the middle of the pitch, simultaneously obstructing the field as Sangakkara threw to the bowler’s end and roughing up the pitch on a line and length. To nobody’s surprise, the umpires’ ignored it.

Ball Five – Total mix-up between Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara produces an easy run out chance for England that is fluffed by KP. Even after 279 ODIs together, “Yes… No… Sorry” is still on the menu.

Ball Six – Alastair Cook must believe that international captaincy is a lot easier than Stuart Broad believes it to be. And when you have Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, Tim Bresnan and Jimmy Anderson in your team instead of Michael Lumb, Ravi Bopara, Luke Wright, Samit Patel and Chris Woakes, it is.